


In the eye of the storm

by StrawberryLane



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: American Politics, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Death, Gen, M/M, Magic Revealed, Mary Lou is President of America, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Obscurial Credence Barebone, Politics, Resistance, Second Salem, The Barebone Children deserve better, War, Wizarding Politics, Wizarding World, could be Graves/Credence if you squint, underground resistance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9588974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: Mary Lou Barebone had run for no-maj president of the United States of America and, to the great astonishment to the majority of the world's population, actually won. After being installed in the White House in January 1926, accompanied by her three children – who she does her best to keep out of the limelight – Mary Lou Barebone began ruling the country with an iron fist.Within the first week of her presidency, she had declared all kinds of sorcery illegal, punishable by death.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on [this](http://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1184.html?thread=1861280#cmt1861280) prompt from the kinkmeme.
> 
> I have a feeling Mary Lou Barebone as president would have more than a couple of things in common with the current president of the United States of America...

The year of 1926 has been a dark year for humanity, Newt thinks as he slowly makes his way off the boat that took him from Bristol to New York. He's carrying his suitcase, careful to make never to let it out of his sight, never to let anyone get a glimpse inside of it. If anyone realized who, and what, he really was, he'd get arrested and most likely killed.

It began in 1925, when rumors of a religious, anti-wizarding organization by the name of the New Salem Philanthropic Society had begun spreading across the world. The organization, known as the Second Salemers in popular speech, were active in America and were very quickly, frighteningly so, gaining power and new ground.

Their leader, a woman by the name of Mary Lou Barebone, had run for no-maj president of the United States of America and, to the great astonishment to the majority of the world's population, actually won. After being installed in the White House in January 1926, accompanied by her three children – who she does her best to keep out of the limelight – Mary Lou Barebone began ruling the country with an iron fist. Within the first week of her presidency, she had declared all kinds of sorcery illegal, punishable by death. She closed the borders, making it difficult for anyone not having an American citizenship to enter the country. She penned new laws, each one more disturbing than the previous one, and to the horror of no-majes and magic people alike, she got most of them through.

Unmarried couples are no longer allowed to live together, because intercourse before marriage is a sin. As if that would really stop anyone, but whatever.

You can be stopped in the streets and arrested, just because someone else, someone who supported Mary Lou Barebone, doesn't like the look of you and thinks you might have hidden powers, so to speak.

Anyone who has magical ancestry of any kind has to register, has to turn their wands in for safekeeping, as the official report says. In reality, the wands are destroyed.

Non-magical parents have to turn their magical children of to the state. Not doing so is viewed as a felony.

Magical people have to leave their homes and live in certain parts of the cities, because according to Mary Lou Barebone and the Second Salemers, magic is a filthy thing and it needs to be contained.

It's really no wonder that the vast majority of the magical population had gone deep underground by the time December 1926 rolled around, Newt thinks.

There are groups of rebels scattered across the country, of course. Both no-maj ones who believe magic is nothing dangerous if used right and magical ones. The biggest one is a group called The Magical Resistance Force or MRF for short.

MRF is why Newt as gone through all the trouble of getting into the United States of America in the first place.

He's meeting with the leader of the group, Seraphina Picquery, the former president of the American wizarding world and the group closest around her, in New York. He has important information that might help MRF in their battle against President Mary Lou Barebone.

Over a month ago, Percival Graves, Picquery's right hand man, contacted Theseus Scamander, Newt's older brother and the leader of the British Resistance, because unfortunately for everyone, some of Mary Lou Barebone's beliefs have begun to cross over to the other side of the pond, with new, horrifying information, asking if Theseus' magizoologist of a brother could be of assistance.

The MRF has discovered how, exactly, Mary Lou Barebone managed to gain power so quickly.

Mary Lou Barebone, the magic hating woman that she is, is using an Obscurial to intimidate and threat people who don't fall in line.

The hypocrisy is real.

This is were Newt enters the picture. He has, on his travels, encountered an obscurial before. He failed to save the girl, but managed to separate the obscurus from its host, making it just about useless. An obscurus without it's host is worth nothing. It can only survive for as long as it can draw strength from the person carrying it, like a parasite.

Newt is supposed to meet a woman called Tina Goldstein close to the harbor, and she will take him to the MRF's secret headquarters.

So he's standing around, wearing his old Hufflepuff scarf, like they agreed on. Suddenly the crowd around him parts to let through a young, brown haired woman, who comes sprinting towards him. He's fairly certain she is Tina Goldstein, because she's wearing the right kind of hat.

The woman flings her arms around him the moments she comes close enough, and Newt, slightly unprepared, manages to catch her just in time.

"I'm so happy you're back! I've missed you loads!"

Those are the words Theseus told Newt Tina would tell him upon meeting and so he responds with his own sentence.

"I've missed you too. I can't wait to tell you all about my travels."

The police officers on duty around them seems to buy into the charade just fine, because they are allowed to leave without a second glance. Tina drags Newt behind her, eagerly chatting on about their supposed relationship, and all the exciting things that will happen now that he has returned, so to speak.

To anyone listening in, it sounds like she's very much in love and happy to have him back.

It's something Newt knows he has to be prepared for. In America, you can never be sure who is listening in, the MRF learnt this the hard way in the beginning. So everything is hidden, even simple meetings like this one.

The MRF headquarters are housed in an elegant brownstone in Manhattan. It's in a muggle, no, no-maj neighborhood, and if you don't know about its existence, you can't see it.

" _They_ just don't see it. Safer that way," Tina tells him as she knocks a series of complicated patterns on the old oak door.

The door opens to reveal a blonde, curly haired woman. She is smiling, quickly ushering Newt and Tina inside, slamming the door close behind them.

"This is my sister, Queenie," Tina introduces them as she drops the charade of pretending to be head over heels in love with Newt. Without it, she's a no nonsense woman.

"Hello, honey. I'm so glad you had a good trip," Queenie tells him, as Tina mutters under her breath about how her sister is a legilimens.

The group closest to Picquery, Newt soon learns, consists of Tina and Queenie, Queenie's no-maj boyfriend Jacob and Picquery's right hand man, Percival Graves.

Graves was the one who learnt of the actual existence of the obscurial first, because for the past couple of months, he has been impersonating a worker at the White House.

"I'm basically serving as a personal butler," Graves tells Newt as they sit down to eat dinner. It's been prepared by Jacob, the no-maj way, because Mary Lou Barebone is using some kind of new technology to snap up traces of magic. It works, Newt realizes, much like how the Ministry of Magic back in Britain always seem to know when underage wizards use magic outside of Hogwarts.

"Mary Lou Barebone is supposed to arrive in New York tomorrow, which is why Percival is here now, for a press conference. She'll likely bring her children with her, she doesn't like being separated from them, especially not the boy. He's the obscurial," Seraphina informs Newt over a mountain of mashed potatoes.

"How did you discover that?" Newt asks, looking at Percival.

"I happened to be in the room when that woman ordered her son to take care, as she put it, of Senator Shaw, who'd been... not as supporting as she wanted him to be. He was found dead the next day, his body marked by an obscurus."

"And you think the boy is the obscurial?"

"I know he is. I've seen it. That's the reason we contacted you."

"How is it going, Percival?" Picquery cuts in. "Is he starting to trust you?"

"Yes. But his mother's influence is still greater, if forced to choose, he will chose her. Which is why I need more time."

"How is Barebone controlling him?" Newt inquires. "Gaining control of an unstable obscurial is a very difficult task."

"She's threatening his sisters, saying she'll hurt them if he doesn't obey her. I don't know why that is so effective, because she already beats all three of them for the slightest things."

"So to gain his trust you have to save his sisters too."

"Exactly," Percival nods.

"How do you destroy an obscurus?" Queenie cuts in, curiosity coloring her voice.

Newt swallows down the last of his mashed potatoes and puts his fork down.

"You don't. You contain it. We need to separate it from the boy, because without him, the obscurus is useless, so to speak. It needs the power of a living, breathing host to have any actual power itself."

"So we're going to kill him," Seraphina supplies and Percival chokes on a piece of chicken. Seraphina's glare softens.

"Oh, Percival," she says. "Didn't I tell you not to get your feelings mixed up in this?"

*

Percival transforms himself back into his White House working character after dinner and returns to the hotel he's supposed to be staying in while President Barebone is in town. Newt opts to help Queenie and Jacob with the dishes while Tina and Seraphina spread prints of the Woolworth building all over the table to study. The Woolworth building is where Mary Lou Barebone will be holding her press conference tomorrow evening. According to Percival, the obscurial will be there too. "She almost never let's him out of her sight, the wretched woman."

They only have one chance to get this right and if they don't, they're doomed. Both because then they'll have a live, violent and furious obscurus on their hands and because if they should survive that, they'll be arrested and sentenced to death for treason.

"We also need your help, Mr Scamander," says Tina. "And if they find you haven't left the country on the date you said you would, they will find you and arrest you and possibly throw you in prison for attempting to become a citizen without the right or something like that."

So tomorrow night it is.

Newt sleeps poorly, waking up time after time because the moon is simply not leaving him alone. And nerves. Newt would be lying to himself if he told himself he wasn't the tiniest bit worried this might go horribly wrong.

*

They enter the Woolworth Building in pairs. Queenie and Seraphina undercover as sophisticated journalists, eager to worship every word that comes out of Mary Lou Barebone's mouth. Tina and Newt as the newly wed couple that are eager to see the country's president in the flesh for the first time.

Jacob managed to get himself, with a little help from Queenie, a one day gig as a security guard for the Woolworth Building. He's standing in front of the imposing doors that lead to the big hall in which the conference will be held, shining his badge and flirting with a giggling Queenie and an irritated Seraphina.

They keep relatively close to each other in the crowd in front of the stage, just so they don't lose each other in the chaos that might be coming later, if all goes to plan.

In front of the podium behind which Mary Lou Barebone will hold her speech, there's a gigantic banner, informing the audience that their current president is the best yet and that her visions are bigger than anything anyone else has ever dreamed about. She's going to change the world.

If only it was for the better.

Percival, as his White House worker persona, appears on the stage, closely followed by a young man who has to be Credence Barebone. The young dark haired man with the hunched shoulders to make himself appear smaller, are flanked by two girls, who also keep the same kind of posture. They all sit down at one end of the small table on the side of the stage, Percival bending down to listen to something the younger girl tells him.

After another five minute delay, Mary Lou Barebone herself appears on the stage. Dressed in a formal violet dress, she takes the center place at the podium, drawing herself up to her full height.

The excited noise in the hall slowly dies down, as the woman watches patiently. When it's finally so quiet you could hear a pin drop, she begins to speak.

What follows is half an hour of absolute nonsense, at least to Newt's ears. Mary Lou Barebone is preaching about how next year, 1927, is going to be the year that ends witchcraft for good, the year that makes America the greatest nation on earth once again.

After a brief pause, the journalists are allowed to ask questions. Some are actually insightful, but most, because Mary Lou Barebone is still a woman, are about what she's wearing, how she runs her home, how the absence of a man in her life has affected her presidency.

Newt sneaks a glance towards the table where the Barebone children and Percival are seated. Percival seems bored, if on high alert from the attack he knows is coming, and the children seem nervous and uncomfortable, as if they wish they could be anywhere but in the same room as their mother. The older girl flinches as the flash of a camera goes off near her and Newt watches as the boy quickly looks toward their mother, but otherwise does not react.

Soon after that, time seems to slow down like it's wading through syrup for Newt. Seraphina, who has moved closer and closer to the stage during the press conference, suddenly throws her arm out and throws something at the president. It's just a red ball, a childrens toy, but the security guards doesn't know that. So they swarm the stage as fast as they can, surrounding the President.

The crowd is uproar as some of the guards dive for Seraphina, who keeps moving through the crowd, casting spell after spell towards the men as they try to catch her.

Suddenly, Newt is very happy Theseus made sure he brought extra wands with him for the Americans to use. He slips away, closer to the side of the stage as Queenie and Tina draw their own wands, causing general panic in the room.

"Credence!" The word cuts through the noise like a whip, the boy, who has been following the racket in the room with interest, immediately cowering at the sound of his mother's voice.

"Ma," he begs.

"Don't argue with me Credence, you know I don't like it. Kill these fools, you know what happens if you disobey me."

Mary Lou Barebone sounds entirely calm as her closest adviser urges her to move off the stage. By now, Percival should have dragged the Barebone girls off to the relative safety of the janitors closet on the second floor, where they will be picked up by Jacob soon enough. He will tell them what to do from there.

But Credence has to stay, has to be kept in this room, because the obscurus needs to be separated from its host, and that's a difficult thing to do if it's out in the air, destroying everything it comes in contact with.

Newt watches as Credence throws a last, pleading look towards his stony faced mother and then the boy is gone, replaced by a big, fiery cloud of smoke. Credence, because it still is Credence, so very much, shoots up towards the ceiling roaring as the people trapped in the room scream in sheer terror.

For a moment, Newt can only stand frozen and watch as the obscurus whirls around, heading straight for Tina, who's fighting the best she can to defend herself from being surrounded by the black smoke that will literally suck the life out of her if given half the chance.

Most of the crowd are huddling on the floor by now, pressing themselves towards the ground as if they want to become part of it.

"Credence," Mary Lou Barebone says, as she appears on the stage once again, "Kill everyone in this room. They have seen too much."

The obscurus whirls around once again, leaving Tina alone for a moment, instead hovering near the ceiling.

Shouting can be heard from behind the stage, and suddenly the Barebone girls, Jacob and Percival all appear on the stage, the girls frantically yelling for Credence to "Come back down! You don't need to do this!"

Newt watches, as if in slow motion, Mary Lou steps up to the girls and give each of them a hard slap. The oldest girl's head whip to the side from the force of the hit, her entire cheek flaming red. She staggers, only to be caught by Percival, who has his own wand out by now, pointing it straight towards Mary Lou.

"Don't be foolish," the woman snorts, glaring at him. "Have you been hiding this the entire-"

Mary Lou doesn't get further than that, because up under the ceiling Credence gives a roar that makes the windows rattle.

It's a scream full of years of pain and anguish and before Newt really has time to react the black smoke has headed straight for Mary Lou Barebone and is tossing her into the air as she screams for her life.

She falls to her death from high up in the air, her body falling to the ground with a sickening crack.

In the shocked silence that follows, the youngest Barebone girl starts giggling. It's a panicked kind of giggling, one driven on more by adrenaline and fear than actual joy, but still, in the shocked, silent room, she's laughing.

Seraphina takes that moment to point her wand towards Credence and utter the spell Newt taught her earlier in the day. If used carefully, it can help separate the obscurus from its host. But Seraphina has apparently forgotten the bit about being careful, because she's shouting the spell over and over again, hitting Credence from all angles.

Credence, from inside the black burning smoke, screams in pain as the spells make contact.

And then he explodes. The ball of smoke is turned into fine tendrils that linger around the room for a while, before disappearing, like when you blow out a candle.

Absolute silence fills the room once again, as everyone stares toward the spot where the obscurial was not even five seconds ago.

*

They return to their safe house as soon as they possibly can. Jacob and Queenie managed to sneak out when the police arrived to take people to the hospital for care. The Barebone girls and Percival quietly went with them.

Newt, Tina and Seraphina take the long way home, in case somebody decides to follow them.

They have, after all, exposed themselves as wizards and witches now.

"At least we didn't actively kill the president of the United States," Tina points out as she slips her hand into Newt's own.

"Thank Mercy Lewis for that," Seraphina quips, relieved laughter evident in her voice.

"Poor Credence," Newt sighs. He can't help but feel a tiny speck of guilt, this being the second obscurial he has failed to save.

They are almost at the brownstone when the door is flung open and a disheveled Queenie rushes out to meet them.

"He's alive!" She's yelling and Tina shushes her when a couple walking further up the street turn around at the sound. "Sorry," Queenie whispers, "but he's alive and he's here!"

"Who is, Goldstein?" Seraphina asks.

"Credence Barebone! He's alive but the obscurus is gone! He tried to turn into it when Percival asked, but couldn't!"

"How can he be here though?" Tina asks, her brow furrowed.

"He was in one of those tendrils of smoke and followed his sisters when we left and simply floated into Modesty's pocket when she wasn't looking."

Newt, looking past her down the narrow corridor into the kitchen, realizes Queenie's telling the truth. All three Barebone children are sitting awkwardly at the table, untouched steaming mugs of something in front of them and Jacob and Percival off to the side, speaking in low voices.

Newt feels happiness bubble up through his chest, impossible to contain. Apparently his track record with obscurials isn't completely shot to hell after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! :D


End file.
